[00:34:25] Chris: Um, and that, you know, that’s been a challenge. Um, we’ve also had very ambitious goals, so we don’t ever project flat growth. We always project up. And so when you don’t hit that, it can be discouraging. And, um, we, you know, we’ve spent a lot of time on this topic. Um, And making sure the team has the right motivation point forward, but also, um, has the, I don’t even know what you call it, the determination to continue to pick up.
[00:34:56] Chris: We call it relentless,
[00:34:58] Chris: which is a core value, right? Um, and, um, that that’s just really important. It’s important when you’re hiring to to say, look, you’re not always going to win. Um, I, I think the way we present it now is like, look, I know I’m a winner and that sounds gonna sound really confident. I am, and I, I hire winners and we, and I don’t do all the hiring, but we hire winners and, um, I don’t need a, um, scoreboard to always tell us that, that we’re winning.
[00:35:25] Chris: Um, we have a lot of conviction of the customer we’re doing, um, we’re, um, solving problems for them. Um, I know, I know every executive decision at my desk and how it’s made and, and, and, and how those calls like those principles, I would say, and I just feel really good about that. So, um, we do have to look in the mirror.
[00:35:47] Chris: Sometimes they go, look, we, uh, are done all this stuff and these amazing things. So, yeah, the last four months have been great, but like you got to refire yourself back up.
[00:35:55] Chris: Um, but I think every, I think every entrepreneur probably is looking at another company. And going, dang, I wish I would have hit that metric.
[00:36:04] Chris: And, um, you know, maybe absent, uh, you know, a few super high flyers. Um,
[00:36:13] Courtney: yeah, well, what’s, um What I like about that is that what you’re doing is you’re tackling self doubt. So, a lot of people struggle with self doubt and especially people who are winners and people who are pursuing excellence always. Um, you, it’s always really easy to say, what could we do better? Which is good, that’s healthy, especially when running a business.
[00:36:33] Courtney: But, reminding yourself that, you know, you wouldn’t work here if you weren’t. Qualified if you weren’t a winner, you know, he we wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t done all these amazing things and honestly You guys are disrupting an industry. You’re you’re creating something brand new. So obviously there’s not it’s not gonna be perfect all of the time But that relentlessness is so important to your culture.
[00:36:56] Courtney: I bet
[00:36:56] Chris: yeah. And I think that’s an example of some of the leadership stuff. Like this isn’t something I would intuitively thought to remind people of. And it’s, uh, it is the role of the CEO to keep restating those. So that’s not really a natural thing for me, but I’ve, I’ve realized how important it is to. Make sure that everyone feels that kind of winning, um, momentum, I would say.
[00:37:20] Chris: And it’s like, Hey, look where we’re at. Um, again, and then you, you like, I hear that from, from employees. Like, ah, Chris, like you kind of could use a little bit this, like, okay. Like I’m always, I feel like I’m boring you guys. I’m always happy to talk about this stuff.
[00:37:34] Courtney: Yeah, just kind of re sharing that vision over and over again, keep people moving.
[00:37:39] Courtney: Yeah. When you think about, um, what’s next for Build, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of things cooking, which is very exciting. Are there any emerging financing models or other things that you’re exploring that, um, you’re going to be building out over the next two years for subcontractors? Any that you care to share?
[00:38:01] Chris: Yeah, no, I, I, look, I, um, it’s, we’ve had a important conversation with ourselves around what do we want to be? Um, and what I mean by that is our, right now our, we have a few products. Uh, our biggest revenue drivers right now are both financial products. Uh, we have a lean services product, which generates revenue.
[00:38:23] Chris: And then we have a couple of other technology products that we just give away for free. And, um, you know, there’s a, there’s different directions. This is, we, we generally call this like the left, the left turn or the right turn, which are more like 10 degree turns that, that end up in a different position altogether.
[00:38:41] Chris: And the best value we can create for our customer is really on solving the financing and payments. And that is our, that is what we have a lot of experience and we can, um, Create this triangulation. And what that means is opening that capital markets to, to just cheaper capital of a risk that we know is there, but we’ve, we’ve somewhat structured and flipped us on its head such that it performs the way maybe a mortgage asset or some other asset would.
[00:39:14] Chris: And that is what we’re really good at. That is in particular what I’m very good at. And, you know, there is the look in the mirror moment there. I think I’ve used that twice now. Um, Where you, where you say, is, is this, is this where we want to go over the next 46 years? We’ve had that conversation with ourselves and that’s what it is.
[00:39:32] Chris: So we don’t, we, we no longer have this pressure of we’re going to become a SAS company. Like we’re going to become a SAS company and like this other thing, we’ll get this other multiple. It’s like, this is where we create value. This is what we’re really good. This is what we’re going to do. Um, and, and just believe in our, in our space.
[00:39:52] Chris: It’s so. Our total addressable market, we, we think of about 800 billion. So we just think there’s a lot of, uh, growth opportunity between, you know, now and then,
[00:40:04] Courtney: Yeah, I think that takes so much self control. Um, a lot of founders will start to see some success and be like, we’re really good at this and I think we could be good at moving into other industries or expanding to be all things for subcontractors. But being able to say, no, we are going to focus on financing solutions, there’s plenty of room to grow here, let’s not get distracted by the other stuff, takes a lot of control, it takes a lot of focus.
[00:40:29] Courtney: Um, so I, I love that. I’m really excited to see kind of what you come up with next. It’s going to be really great.
[00:40:35] Chris: yeah, I think the struggle from a founder perspective is, and I have no answer. I’m just kind of calling out the issue is that you get a lot of influence. You get a lot of influence from your investors, from potential investors, from your team. And a lot of times it contradicts. And a lot of times it, It goes a direction that you would draw up on a whiteboard as correct, but you know, if the business could really speak to you and whisper in your ear that it would say, no, that’s the wrong way.
[00:41:06] Chris: And, um, there’s this conviction, but it’s tough because too much conviction and you’re, you’re missing something too little conviction and you’re weak and you really can’t bust through. So there’s a like odd thing and it can kind of like every day and every week can fluctuate. Um, and I’m, I guess I’m, I’m sympathetic to other founders that have this dilemma of not always such a clear vision of how you grow the business.
[00:41:32] Courtney: Do you attribute that to, like, intuition or just a gut feeling or how to make those decisions?
[00:41:39] Chris: Um, I mean, I don’t know. I think from a methodology standpoint, I, I first of all, I’d like to seek a lot of feedback and then build the feedback on itself. Um, and then I like to sit on things and marinate.
[00:41:52] Courtney: Yeah.
[00:41:53] Chris: for sometimes quite a while. Um, and then just always seek feedback. Um, and then it just, you know, it’s a little bit of this, like, you know, I think it should be this.
[00:42:05] Chris: I don’t know what you call that
[00:42:07] Courtney: I think that is intuition of just saying something in me says that this is the right direction and nobody knows the company better than the founders, so, you know, you should make that, that decision, you know?
[00:42:19] Chris: There is, you know, there is a measurement of conviction though. So like sometimes you hear feedback from an investor or potential investor. That’s, I get a lot of feedback from potential investors, right? So you’re pitching your business, you know, every founder’s pitching their business and every potential investor will give you thoughts and you’re trying to sell to them.
[00:42:38] Chris: So that’s like product feedback, like it is from a customer. So you want to incorporate that, but there’s no conviction there. They’re just like, yeah, this, Right. You should do this. Then there’s the board, which they have every motivation and, uh, but maybe slightly less conviction cause they don’t kind of know.
[00:42:54] Chris: They, they’re also waiting on this, you know, they’re, they’re looking for the CEO and their conviction, but it measures up a bit and the conviction, you know, barometer. And then there’s the team. Right. And so measuring the intent behind the conviction is really important. So it’s like, are you advocating for this?
[00:43:11] Chris: Because it’s like, of your self interest or are you just passionate about you seeing the problem? You have the vision and it’s like, I gotta get, I better like get on board with this. Like that’s real. I need to like adjust my way of thinking. Um, and then if, if, if you don’t, then you have to temper and you’re like, well, you know, I hear that, but this is actually what we’re going to do.
[00:43:35] Chris: And this was really what being a CEO is, um, at the end of the day. It’s like kind of measuring all this stuff up. And then getting your team to be aligned on, on which direction you’re going, whether it’s, you know, whichever that direction is.
[00:43:46] Courtney: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s also, everyone has a very specific perspective, but as a CEO, you Kind of have all of the, you know, a lot more information than each individual contributor. So, ultimately, it is, does come down to, okay, who’s making the best arguments? Are there any trends between these things? And what do we want to do as a company?
[00:44:09] Courtney: And just having that final say, it can be, it can be a lot sometimes, but it seems like it’s worked out pretty well for you so far.
[00:44:16] Chris: Yeah. And I’m, I’m super envious of the companies that are like, just do this and grow. It’s like, Oh wow. Okay. Should just do that. You know, like a box. com, you know, it’s like, Oh, just say these things. You’re competing with Dropbox. It’s this thing, this thing, just, just hire more AEs. And this is like,
[00:44:32] Chris: um, you know, they don’t have some of those like kind of pivots.
[00:44:36] Chris: We can’t just do a several billion in material financing. Like we really need to be a compliment of different products. And sometimes this is like, uh, decisions that can be, can be challenging.
[00:44:47] Courtney: Yeah, definitely. Um, you guys are mostly in the, you’re primarily in the U. S. right now. You don’t have any international
[00:44:55] Chris: Yep. Yeah. All, all us. Yep.
[00:44:57] Courtney: Are you planning on going global at any point in the future?
[00:45:01] Chris: No, I don’t, I don’t think so. Um, I, you know, from M and a perspective, potentially something would be there at some point, um, but I don’t see any. foreseeable global activity now.
[00:45:16] Courtney: Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, I think that makes, again, a lot of control to say, we do this well, We know the United States very well, because I’m sure in other countries, it’s just a completely different landscape than in the U. S.
[00:45:29] Chris: Yeah. I mean, some of the principles are the same Canada, Australia, Europe, but the, the challenges of, you know, maybe Canada is not, uh, as challenging, but the time zone, the, how you enter a market, what are the partners look like? It’s probably unnecessary risk given our current trajectory, uh, an opportunity with a, with a us market.
[00:45:52] Courtney: Yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense. Um, well, to wrap up here, I was asked this question. If you could give yourself one piece of advice when you were just starting out Build, what would it be? Uh, Uh, Uh huh.
[00:46:06] Chris: Um, I think it would be, it’s going to be hard, um, and it’s going to be harder than you think. And I think, I think that I know that this journey is very, very hard and it’s like soul crushingly hard, um, at times. And I, I’m, I’m kind of asked thinking of that question of what my next future self would say to me now. I think that is the best advice because we’re just doing hard things. And I know every founder is faced with the same thing. Um, these are not easy decisions, and sometimes even the right decision feels wrong. Um, and, um, are my coach always said we have, like a CEO coach that we work with is a great, uh, He always says, um, you’re, you’re, um, gosh, I can’t remember the phrase now, but you’re, um, you’re, uh, setting the journey or you’re basically projecting out front.
[00:47:03] Chris: Like, Hey, when you climb the mountain, you’re going to lose a lot. You’re going to, you’re going to be gasping for, for oxygen. And having that comfort going into it would have been helpful at some of these moments and maybe cause a little less frustration, but, um, also give them like continued to power this conviction on moving forward.
[00:47:22] Courtney: Yeah, just brace yourself. But it’s worth it. I think that’s where you should end it. It’s worth it. Amazing. Well, where can people find you online if they’re interested in build or interested in learning more about you?
[00:47:39] Chris: Yeah, I mean, pretty simple build. com, B I L L D a. com, which is the, uh, probably the best name to
[00:47:47] Courtney: It is such a good name. It really is so perfect.
[00:47:51] Chris: Yeah. There, well, I’ll tell you a story on our name. We, it, that wasn’t our name when we first started. Um, and we, so we actually, uh, registered under a different name and then, uh, a few, months in, maybe even like 30 days in, we, we caught, uh, attention of a global brand that had a sub product deep in the basement that was named the same thing.
[00:48:15] Chris: And, um, it was not, they didn’t come to us, but we saw it and we were like, eh, maybe we should reach out and just say, is this okay? We did. And global brands don’t give permission for anything. So. We were like, shoot, we got to rename the company. Um, and it’s kind of a secret how me and me and Jesse came up with the name, uh, that, that neither one of us will ever tell.
[00:48:39] Chris: Uh, but we came up with it. And as soon as it came up, we were like, that’s it. Uh, and, uh, we’re, we’re really proud of it.
[00:48:46] Courtney: Yeah, a brilliant name and also speaks to like, that was probably really hard naming your company and then finding out, you know, a month later that it was someone else’s company and then having to quickly come up with something new. But. That’s exactly what you needed to get to Build, which is, again, one of my favorite brand names.
[00:49:03] Chris: And getting the domain was a whole nother, uh, experience and story, but I guess it was a couple of years and we ended up getting it, which was this like super crazy story of. Um, this was B. B. I. L. D. dot com. Again, another plug for our website there, but the owner was a, um, was a bill, uh, D. Last name started with a D and, um, wealthy individual, uh, in the U.
[00:49:27] Chris: S. And we found them, um, based on an old fiber, you know, fiber, um,
[00:49:35] Courtney: Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:35] Chris: a fiber handle that was connect because we couldn’t find that it was, it was like whatever the privacy
[00:49:41] Chris: stuff. And we finally found them and we reached out and said, look, we’d like to acquire, you know, and we, we said, like, we’ll pay like 10, 000. It was like, and I, and I knew the way he answered was, was like, this guy was worth tens of millions. And it was like, and I saw the address, we kind of picked up on that. He’s like, you know, I really, um, I really like having this, um, this email domain, um, you know, so now I get all my emails. And so I’ve got this like.
[00:50:11] Chris: Super millionaire guy that loves his email. So I sent him an email, um, a letter and I, I just poured my heart out. I said, everything I have is in this business. My heart, my soul, my everything. This is what our mission, this is what we’re all about. Please. You’d be, you’d be like solving so many things for us if you would sell the domain.
[00:50:30] Chris: And, uh, he responded, look, I’ll do it. And he, for 10, 000, you know, that was nominal for him. Uh, and it’s kind of like I had to give him a reasonable offer. And so we got the domain and. You know, now we’re, we’re, we’re a legit, right? It doesn’t matter. Our revenue, we have our own domain.
[00:50:45] Courtney: That’s it. I love a little bit of humanity
[00:50:48] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I need to find that letter.
[00:50:51] Courtney: Yeah, you should. That’s a, that’s a really good story. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Chris. I really appreciate your time here.
[00:50:59] Chris: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
[00:51:00] Courtney: Of course, and thank you everyone at home for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please make sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave us a review.
[00:51:08] Courtney: If there’s anything you’d like to hear on an upcoming episode, just let us know. For more insights and behind the scenes stories, follow us on LinkedIn or visit rightleftagency. com. And we’ll be back next week with more stories of success, innovation, and marketing strategies to help you grow. See you on the next one.
